"While economic capabilities and institutional systems vary between the two, coordinated knowledge driven processes between China and India will be instrumental in moving both towards global sustainability goals."

Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri, Chair of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said at an event which also featured a discussion of a groundbreaking report between China and India on low carbon collaboration on Monday.

Dr. Pachauri focused on the need for enhanced collaborative research between China and India by saying that China and India have common emission trends and characteristics. And the two countries also face similar mitigation pressures and this suggests the possibility and priority of cooperation between the two countries.

China and India, both as large developing countries as well as emitters, are now in the development stage of rapid industrialization and urbanization, and during the process they are faced with multiple challenges, including control of greenhouse gases emissions, protection of the environment and moving towards a future of low-carbon sustainable development.

Though China’s per capita income levels, energy consumption and progress on socio-economic indicators are higher than India, the two countries have followed similar trajectories of rising energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Both have been going through economic transformations as their economies have shifted to stronger reliance on the manufacturing and service sectors.

"The cardinal number of carbon emission in China is huge because of the large population, which is the biggest obstruction for China to develop low-carbon economy. The situation in India is the same," said Zou Ji, Deputy Director General of the National Center for Climate Strategy and International Cooperation.

Both China and India have high dependency on coal, although China’s carbon intensity per energy supply is around 30% higher than that of other developed countries. It is evident that China and India’s endowment of energy resources will make it more difficult to control greenhouse gas emissions than will be the case in other high-emitting countries.

In developed countries such as Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, the energy consumption structures are relatively balanced, with oil usually playing the main role, and natural gas, hydropower, nuclear power, also part of the energy mix.

Globally, there is an increasing awareness of the need to move away from a carbon-intensive growth path. This, however, requires fundamental policy changes in key sectors of the economy including, but not restricted to, the energy sector.

"China has invested very heavily in renewable energy technologies. India also has a comprehensive national plan on climate change consisting of separate missions, and the very first of the missions is the solar energy mission," said Dr. Pachauri.

In China, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) describes low carbon development as the development of socio-economic system that can realize low carbon emissions.

In the recent 12th Five Year Plan, China has, for the first time, set for itself, a carbon-intensity reduction target of 17% and intends to achieve it by 2015. Similarly, the Government of India ahead of drawing its 12th Five Year Plan has recognized low carbon development and inclusive growth.

Huang Wenhang, director of the Division of International Cooperation of the National Development and Reform Commission of China, said, "The collaborative study between China and India on low-carbon development has set a good example for south-south cooperation. With our joint efforts, we will achieve our goals on low-carbon development."

In future, the fall in the energy intensity in China and India could be driven by a number of factors including structural shifts in economic activity towards services and efficiency improvements in energy-intensive sectors like industry and transportation.

It is evident that with development, agriculture’s share in economic activity has been substituted by growth in industry and services. The ways in which China and India develop themselves is of great importance not only to these two nations and their peoples, but also to the whole world.

Achievements made by the two countries in addressing climate change will significantly influence global efforts in realizing the goal of limiting the average global surface temperature increase of 2 degrees Celsius over the pre-industrial average.

Xing Lu contributes to the story.